In vehicles, such as personal cars, it is common practice today to include an airbag curtain. These airbag curtains may for example be attached at the inside of the vehicle at the side panels near the roof. In case of an accident, the curtains are adapted to be activated and thus form a safe guard against hitting the hard parts of the vehicle. In case of a curtain located at the side, its main purpose is to protect the driver or the occupants, in particular in the event of a side impact, from hitting the side panels and the side windows.
When the curtains are activated, there is large force acting on the fastener of the curtain and the panel to which it is attached. In order to be able to securely fasten the curtain to the vehicle, or the vehicle panels, it is needed to make the fastener enough robust to withstand the forces developed at activation of the curtain.
In EP 1 422 112, it is described a fastener for an airbag curtain. According to this fastening system, the airbag is provided with an anchor portion which is attached to a side panel of the car by means of fasteners. Each fastener squeezes the anchor portion between the panel and a flange of the fastener when the curtain is attached to the panel. The fastener is securely attached by means of a tapping screw driven into a shank when the fastener is inserted in a mounting hole.
There are further solutions of fastening an airbag curtain to a panel described in for example EP 1 522 466, EP 1 502 824 and GB 2 364 975 which describes related art to which the present invention is directed.
Even though the above mentioned documents describe different systems that works today there are still further developments which are desired to improve the present fasteners and the present system. The described fasteners do not concern the easiness in mounting of the airbag curtain, neither is it described different aspects of the production process and how to manufacture the elements in a simple way. Hence, there is still a need for an improved fastener and an improved fastening system which take into account the easiness of manufacturing the fastener and to provide a fastener which is easy to mount and take into account different desires in the mounting process of the airbag curtain.